Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme #10, page 2 (1989)

After I heard about the unexpected passing of Jackson "Butch" Guice last month, it reminded me that I didn't have anything by him currently in my collection. As he was easily one of my top 10 favorite comic artists of all time, this was something I had to remedy quickly. But I didn't want just ANYTHING, I wanted something that struck a nice tone to what he was capable of and why I enjoyed his work so much. This piece here that I found, hit those markers for me very well.

I first took note of Guice's work on his (all too brief) run on Iron Man. Of course, the sterling inks of Bob Layton probably helped in that regard, but I immediately took note of Giuce's sharpness in his linework. It was always so crisp and clean. I've often said that you could almost shave with it. It was detailed, yet never felt cluttered or overworked. It's a skill he would bring to his next assignment, working on Doctor Strange.

The things I love about this page most are the backgrounds and the fact that Guice inked himself (showing he didn't need a high caliber inker to make his work shine). Just look at the details in the first and third panels. Few people before him and even less since, would take such time to put in backgrounds with such delineation. The particulars on the perfect shape of the windows, or the dimensions of the crane, are things many artists don't spend a lot of time on (especially in superhero fiction of this time). But Guice seemed to have an almost "perfectionist" attitude about such things. Even the slight image of the wall in the final panel bears this out. To make each individual brick have the correct shape and texture, speaks to someone who takes the details VERY seriously. I also like that this page is "pure Guice." Some inkers can enhance an artists pencils, while a lot don't, but no one will understand what you are trying to "get at" in your work, better than you will yourself and with Guice, this is plainly shown here. He was an artist who was willing to try new things and techniques. The images of Doctor Strange on this page show this, as they are all covered with a zipatone layer, that Giuce would have had to cut out very exactly, to get the effect he wanted (to infer the good Doctor is invisible, as shown in the published version). It's surely a sign of a man, who put a profound importance on how he presented his craft and how he wanted others to evaluate it.

Unfortunately, for me, I never got to meet Jackson Guice in person. So, I never got to tell him just how much I respected and admired his diligence to his artistic proficiency. Like a fine wine, his work only got better with age, as he was in demand in this industry right up until his sudden passing, which only serves to spotlight the kind of professional he was in his chosen field. The loss of his talent is something that we will all miss and never be able to replace, but we will always have the great works he produced for many decades to remember him by and to inspire others to achieve the artistic heights he himself did. Godspeed, Jackson "Butch" Guice! We hardly knew ye!